CI/CD Pipeline Skill

Build robust CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions for automated testing, building, and deployment.

Core Workflow Structure

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI/CD Pipeline

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, develop]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

env:
  NODE_VERSION: '20'

jobs:
  # Job 1: Lint and Type Check
  quality:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
          cache: 'npm'

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Lint
        run: npm run lint

      - name: Type check
        run: npm run type-check

  # Job 2: Test
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: quality
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
          cache: 'npm'

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Run tests
        run: npm test -- --coverage

      - name: Upload coverage
        uses: codecov/codecov-action@v4
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.CODECOV_TOKEN }}

  # Job 3: Build
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: test
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
          cache: 'npm'

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Build
        run: npm run build

      - name: Upload build artifacts
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: build
          path: dist/

  # Job 4: Deploy (only on main)
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: build
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    environment: production
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Download build artifacts
        uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: build
          path: dist/

      - name: Deploy to Vercel
        uses: amondnet/vercel-action@v25
        with:
          vercel-token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          vercel-org-id: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          vercel-project-id: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}
          vercel-args: '--prod'

Matrix Builds

Test across multiple versions/platforms:

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    strategy:
      matrix:
        os: [ubuntu-latest, macos-latest, windows-latest]
        node: [18, 20, 22]
      fail-fast: false
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node }}
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test

Secrets Management

# Using secrets
env:
  DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABASE_URL }}
  API_KEY: ${{ secrets.API_KEY }}

# GitHub environment secrets (for staging/production)
deploy:
  environment: production  # Uses production environment secrets

Caching Strategies

# NPM cache
- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
  with:
    cache: 'npm'

# Custom cache
- uses: actions/cache@v4
  with:
    path: |
      ~/.npm
      node_modules
    key: ${{ runner.os }}-node-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}
    restore-keys: |
      ${{ runner.os }}-node-

Deployment Patterns

Preview Deployments (PRs)

preview:
  if: github.event_name == 'pull_request'
  steps:
    - name: Deploy Preview
      run: vercel --token=${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}

    - name: Comment PR
      uses: actions/github-script@v7
      with:
        script: |
          github.rest.issues.createComment({
            issue_number: context.issue.number,
            owner: context.repo.owner,
            repo: context.repo.repo,
            body: '🚀 Preview: https://preview-url.vercel.app'
          })

Conditional Deploys

deploy:
  if: |
    github.ref == 'refs/heads/main' &&
    github.event_name == 'push'

FrankX Standard Pipeline

For FrankX projects, use this template:

name: FrankX CI/CD

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  validate:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: '20'
          cache: 'npm'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm run type-check
      - run: npm test

  deploy:
    needs: validate
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Deploy to Vercel
        uses: amondnet/vercel-action@v25
        with:
          vercel-token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          vercel-org-id: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          vercel-project-id: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}
          vercel-args: '--prod'

Anti-Patterns

❌ Storing secrets in code ❌ No caching (slow builds) ❌ Running all jobs sequentially when they can be parallel ❌ No artifact upload for debugging failed builds ❌ Hardcoded versions instead of matrix

✅ Use environment secrets ✅ Cache dependencies aggressively ✅ Parallelize independent jobs ✅ Upload artifacts for debugging ✅ Use matrix for cross-platform testing